Monday, November 12, 2007

Ibero-America


Ibero-America / Iberoamerica is a unifying concept, like Latin America, but includes the European "mother countries" and only those American countries where Spanish or Portuguese is the first language. So, whereas Latin America includes French-speaking countries, Iberoamerica doesn't.

In a sense, the Iberoamerican ideal recreates major swaths of the Spanish and Portuguese empires for the purposes of trade and cultural preservation, but gives the Americas equal power, too. The closest thing to this in the English-speaking world is the Commonwealth connecting Great Britain with many of its former imperial colonies, but not including the USA (rebel upstarts, after all).


Today is the birthday of Iberoamerican writer-poet-philosopher-dramatist Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana (ca. 1648-1695). She is, along with artist Frida Kahlo, a Mexican hero, virtually a saint.

What was a woman to do in the 1600s? If she wanted to have any degree of independence, she must be either very rich or become a nun. Sor Juana wasn't rich.


Radha Mitchell (b. Radha Rani Amber Indigo Anunda Mitchell) was born not in Ibero-America, but in Australia. Still, it's her birthday (she's 34) and I liked her in Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda (2004) -- playing both Melindas. One tragic, the other comic.


Alejandra Guzmán (Alejandra Gabriela Guzmán Pinal), part Mexican and part Venezuelan, is popular throughout Iberoamerica and Latin America. Can you dig?


Today's Rune: The Warrior.

5 comments:

Sidney said...

Happy birthday to Radha. I didn't know who she was until Silent Hill, but I think she's turning up in more movies.

Luma Rosa said...

Erik, the Hugo Chavez stole the scene of Alejandra Guzmán! (laughs) That wild man! I find that for there they had been knowing of its insanities!
*My anniversary is day 17
Good week!
Beijus

Charles Gramlich said...

Reminds me a bit of the pope dividing up the world.

Cheri said...

Rhada Mitchell was in Silent Hill, a horrible adaptation of one of my favorite video games. She was awesome but the plot not too good..

ZZZZZZZ said...

The top picture is very interesting... I'm taking an Art History class and I have a bit of a different way of looking at art now.